Are these things happening with you?
You have one thought of washing hands running in mind again and again and you are not able to concentrate on other things on life. You think you are dirty most of the time and always think about cleaning things.
You are disturbed by these thoughts don’t want to think about those but don’t have control of them or unable to do so.
Then you need to know about Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD)-
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD)-
To understand OCD we should know about obsessions and compulsions.
Firstly obsessions are repetitive idea, images and impulsive, which dominates one’s thinking beyond the point of its relevance and considered as senseless (i.e. repetitive thoughts like my hands are dirty). Obsessions are time consuming and distressing for the person.
Compulsion is compensatory motor acts (i.e. washing hands) of obsessions.
A patient with OCD may have an obsession, a compulsion, or both.
Two to three in 100 persons suffer from OCD in their life time. Men and women are equally effective. OCD is mostly found with other psychiatric illness like depression, social phobia, tourette’s disorder and tics.
Why a person suffer from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD)-
- Chemical imbalance in brain specially serotonin
- Involvement of some brain areas
- Family history of OCD
- Strict toilet training (hypothetical)
Symptoms-
Presence of obsessions, compulsions, or both-
Person attempts to ignore or suppress obsessions with some other thoughts or actions but unable to do so.
Compulsions are aimed to prevent or reduce the anxiety due to obsessions.
The obsessions and compulsions are time consuming and take more than 1 hour per day.
Symptom patterns-
Contamination, doubts, sexual, checking, washing, hoarding, symmetry, needs to ask etc.
Treatment-
Medicines and therapies (mainly behavior therapy).
This site is just for the awareness of mental illnesses not for diagnosis. If someone finds himself/herself or their loved one having symptoms kindly consult a psychiatrist.